ADOPTION (CONSENT TO PUBLICATION) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 21 March 2013.)

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (10:34): As it presently stands, South Australian parents who have adopted a child must obtain permission from the chief executive of Families SA or a court to have themselves or their child identified in the media as parties to an adoption. Understandably, this requirement has caused, and does cause, concern amongst some adoptive families. These families, rightly, want to be able to make decisions about whether or not their child appears in the media, for example, in a photograph for the newspaper, just as other parents do.

An application to the chief executive is, we believe, unnecessarily bureaucratic and only serves to make these loving families feel like special cases, unable to make decisions about the welfare of their children like other families do. The fact that failure to seek this approval can result in a fine is particularly perverse.

The government has considered a number of matters relating to these aspects of the Adoption Act and regulations that the member for Morialta has brought to this house. An intercountry adoption parent support group, the South Australian Chinese Adoption Support Organisation, has also been particularly active on this issue. I will be introducing some amendments which aim to enable families to go about their business without being required to seek consent from my department for publication in the media content relating to their family's adoption status.

In 2009, through the National Intercountry Adoption Harmonisation Working Group, under the auspices of the then community and disability services minister's advisory council, South Australia agreed in principle, along with all other jurisdictions, that all Australian adoption legislation should allow parties to a legally completed adoption to give their consent to be identified in the media as a party to an adoption once an adoption order has been granted. The amendment that we will be voting on in this house settles that agreement. In relation to the media provisions in the Adoption Act, the government supports an amendment to section 31 so that:

any adult party to a legally completed adoption may consent to being identified in the news media as a party to an adoption;

where the adoption is legally completed, an adopted child can be identified in the news media as such, provided consent is given by the parents or legal guardians of the adopted child; and

where any child who is placed with prospective adoptive parents but who is still under the guardianship of the chief executive (for example, where the adoption has not been legally completed), approval to be identified in the news media as a party to adoption proceedings must be granted by the chief executive or the court.

The amendment reflects the status of the chief executive as guardian during the processing of an adoption application. The issue with the term 'guardian' is that it may change over time. I am the guardian of many children in this state; another person may be given guardianship of an adopted child—say, a caregiver or a relative—or an adopted child may have lost an adoptive parent, only for the adoptive parent to find a new partner who may seek orders to be considered as a guardian also.

The current legislation had noble intentions, and that was making the protection of an adopted child paramount during very sensitive times. However, in a society where adoption is now much better understood and much more open, it is not necessary for the department to be involved in the decision regarding whether parties to an adoption can be identified in the media. It also had the unintended consequence of upsetting adoptive families unnecessarily. Although this was not the intention, the government believes that this requirement now only serves to make adoptive families unnecessarily upset.

The amendment we are dealing with in the house remedies this. It preserves the safeguards during the process of changing guardianship, whilst ensuring that once adoption is complete families are no longer required to go through the process of asking for permission from the department or the court for their child to be identified in the media as an adopted child.

A photo in the newspaper, for example, can be determined as appropriate or otherwise by those people closest to the child—their loving adoptive parents. I think we would all agree that it is these people who are in the best position to make that decision. I wish those families all the very best and acknowledge their passionate advocacy on this issue. I commend the amendments that we are putting to those members of the house, and I thank the member for Morialta for bringing this matter to the house.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (10:40): I rise to support this matter. I want to bring to the attention of the house the reasons why I have been very supportive of the member for Morialta over this matter. Some years ago a constituent came to me when they were having trouble with the agency here in South Australia with the process that they had entered into in an attempt to adopt a small Chinese child, a little girl from rural China, to become part of their family in rural South Australia.

Part of the problem was that it got to the point where I believe there was a genuine attempt to prevent this from happening through the agency at the time. Over a period of time we were successful in getting the adoption to happen, but then they ran foul of the agency because this particular family wanted to provide a sibling for their daughter and wanted to go through the process again to adopt another child. Unfortunately—and this is part of the function of the world we live in—this couple found themselves unable to have their own children after many years of trying.

They then went through the IVF program, and that all takes time. By the time that they had come to the conclusion that the only hope for them to have a family was through adoption, and the only hope to have a family through adoption was to adopt an overseas-born child, they were getting on in years. They were in their 40s, and this was one of the reasons why the agency made, in my opinion, life very difficult for them to complete the process.

Indeed, when they attempted to adopt the second child, it became even more difficult than their first experience. They came up against this other problem that they were not able to identify themselves as adoptive parents. Consequently, they were not able to undertake any lobbying, particularly in the public sphere, to change the regulations to allow themselves, and people finding themselves in similar circumstances, to have an easier path.

At the end of the day, we–myself as their local member and that family—remained very frustrated by the whole process. So I was delighted when the member for Morialta raised this matter in our party room because I could see that it was going to overcome one of the issues that I had grappled with a number of years before, or a part of the issue at least. My understanding is that there are a significant number of adoptive parents who have similar situations, or similar experiences, who have been unable to advocate for changes to the regulations to help themselves and other people who find themselves in a similar position.

So it is for that reason in particular that I am delighted to support this measure, and I am delighted that the government has at last come on board. I sincerely hope that there will be a change of attitude in the agency as well. I can assure the house that the little girl, who was successfully adopted eventually and who is now living very happily with a family in my electorate, I generally believe will have a much, much better chance at life than she would have had had her adoptive parents continued to be frustrated in their attempts. I soundly support the motion and commend it to the house.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (10:44): I think this is a terrific day for those families who have been grappling with this issue for a number of years. The issue first really came to public prominence in 2005 when there was a rally on the steps of Parliament House where those rallying on an issue were unable to be identified. I do not want to traverse all of that ground again right now because I did so in my second reading explanation.

The point is that this has been a bugbear for those families for at least eight years and for some of them who have been aware of it for longer than that. I am very pleased today, as I know they are, with the contribution that the minister has just made, so I thank her for that. I do not really have much to refute out of those comments that have been made because everyone has spoken in favour of the bill, which is a very pleasant change.

However, I do think it is worth noting that this probably would not have happened without the advocacy of the President of the SA Chinese Adoption Support Inc., Nigel Holden, and his board and those many other adoptive parents and adoptees, who are children and adults now, who have been campaigning for this and who have written to me in particular. A number of them came into Parliament House a couple of months ago.

I would like to thank those members who took the time to meet with those parents, those adoptees and other people in that community from the Liberal Party and the Greens, who were very quick to jump on board and I commend them for that, and from Family First, Dignity for Disability and a number of members on the government benches who I know have been advocating for this. I am sure they will be pleased to write to their constituents who have been talking to them to share the good news, as indeed will other members who have contributed and Independent members of course, a number of whom were also involved.

I am pleased that the Labor Party has today announced that they will support the bill on the basis that they have some amendments to offer. The minister was kind enough to show me a draft of the amendments and I am very pleased to say that the opposition will be supporting those amendments. They would perhaps add to the bill and I certainly think that with the amendments we will have a better situation than we do presently.

I might even go so far as to say that the amendments are valuable in and of their own right. Certainly the opposition has no intention of holding this up and I am pleased to commend the bill to the house. I hope it will pass the other place as speedily as possible, perhaps more speedily than has been done in this house, and I look forward to that passage.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 and 2 passed.

Clause 3.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: I have two amendments to clause 3 and I assume that the house would be happy to deal with both amendments together and expeditiously. I move:

Line 15—After 'is a child' insert 'and is not under the guardianship of the Chief Executive'

Line 17—After subparagraph (ii) insert:

(iii) if the person is a child and under the guardianship of the Chief Executive—the Chief Executive; or

The amendments really just make sure that we have clarification around guardianship of the child and the processes that we go through when an adoption is still in progress, to be absolutely clear about who has responsibility around the release of information to the media.

Mr GARDNER: I indicate that the opposition will be supporting the amendments.

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (10:50): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.